Boxes

A box is a Linux machine that runs the Lager runtime and controls the instruments on your bench. Stout adds a small stout container to each box. The container reports the health of the box to Stout and controls who can use the box.

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Find a box

Select Boxes in the sidebar. The Boxes page lists your boxes. Point at Boxes in the sidebar to show links to Favorites and to each box group that you can see.

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The box list

The Boxes page lists the boxes that you can use. Owners and admins see every box in the organization. A member sees only the boxes that an owner or admin assigned to them. See Give people access to a box. To filter the list, type in the search field. The search matches box names, IP addresses, and group names. To show only the boxes that you starred, select Favorites. Refresh checks every box again and updates the list. Box Groups, next to the page title, opens the box groups. See Box groups. Select a column heading to sort the list by that column. Select the heading again to reverse the order. Box names sort in natural order, so BENCH-2 comes before BENCH-10. Select a row outside its links and buttons to expand it. The expanded row shows the box description, a status line, and the instruments on the box. Select an instrument to open it on the Nets tab.

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Health

An amber triangle next to the health state means that one or more instruments are disconnected. An amber shield means that the security of the box needs attention. Point at the state to read the details.

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Actions on a box

Each row has a … menu with these actions:

• Edit changes the box details. Only owners and admins see it.
• Update opens the Lager update window. See Updates.
• Manage Groups adds the box to groups or removes it from groups. Only owners and admins see it.
• View Access shows who can use the box. Only owners and admins see it.
• Favorite stars the box for you. Unfavorite removes the star.
• Lock and Unlock control the box lock. See Locks.
• Delete removes the box from the organization. Only owners and admins see it.

To act on more than one box, select the check boxes in their rows. A bar at the bottom of the page shows Update and Favorite. Owners and admins also see Manage Groups and Delete. A favorite is a personal marker. It does not give you access to a box, and other people do not see it. Boxes > Favorites shows only the boxes that you starred. Owners and admins also see Add Box at the top of the page. The … menu next to it has Import from Lager, Export to Lager, and Delete All. See Add a box.

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The box page

Select a box name to open its page. The header shows the box name, its groups, and a health badge. The … menu in the header holds the actions for the whole box. The box page opens on the Nets tab. To open a tab from a link, add ?tab= and the tab name to the page address, for example ?tab=webcams. If the page does not know the tab name, it opens the Nets tab. If Stout is not installed on a box, the box page opens the Install Stout before proceeding window. See Install Stout. If the box is offline, the page opens the Stout can’t reach this box window. The window shows when the box was last seen, and when Stout was last healthy on it. Select Check again to make Stout try the box again. Stout does not offer an install here, because an install must connect to the box. If the box answers but the Stout container does not, the page opens the Stout not responding window. Select Check again, or select Reinstall Stout. If the Stout container runs but has no configuration, the page opens the Stout config missing window. Select Repair: re-link this box to connect the box to Stout again. The repair connects to the box over SSH, so it also operates when the box is offline. If the Stout container runs but Lager on the box does not answer, the page opens the Lager not responding window. Select Update Lager at the top of the page to open the Lager update window. Each of these windows has Open the box page anyway, which closes the window and shows the tabs.

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Health badge

The health badge shows the state of the whole box: Point at the badge to see three lines: Lager, Stout, and Security. Each line shows the state of that part of the box. When the box is offline, the Stout and Security lines show that the state is unknown. While Stout secures a new box, the badge shows Needs attention. For the security states, see Security states.

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Activity tab

The Activity tab lists the commands that ran on the box. The list includes Lager CLI commands and the commands that Stout ran on the box. To set the time range, select Last hour, 24h, 7 days, 30 days, or All time. The default range is 30 days. You can also enter From and To dates. To filter by origin, set Source to All sources, CLI, or Stout jobs. Each page shows 25 rows. For a command that Stout ran, select View to read its output. Owners and admins also see System events below the list. These are recent audit events for the box, for example installs, updates, access changes, and locks.

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Settings tab

The Settings tab starts with three cards about the box: Box Information, AI readiness, and Box Photos. Box Information shows the description, IP Address, Last Seen, and Registered. When you open the page of a box with an IP address, Stout probes the box once. The probe adds Latency and Lager Version to the card. To probe the box again, select Probe. To edit the description, select it. A description can have up to 1000 characters. Only owners and admins can save a description. AI readiness tells you if the AI features of Stout can plan tests on the box. These features do not read the box directly. They read the copy that Stout keeps of the bench description of the box. A box that runs Lager 0.50.0 or later makes this description. When the box is ready, the card shows one line that says so, and the device under test. When a problem stops the planning, the card shows one line for each problem and how to correct it:

• Stout did not read the bench for more than one hour. The box is offline, or Stout cannot get to it.
• The box has no saved nets.
• The box has no description of a device under test. Use lager dut edit to add one.
• The Lager version of the box does not give the driver reference. Update the box to the current Lager release.
• An instrument that a saved net uses is not connected. The card names the instrument and its nets.

A box on a Lager release before 0.50.0 does not make a bench description, and the card says so. Select Download the bench description (JSON) to get the whole document. Select the reload button to read the card again. Box Photos holds pictures of the box and its bench. Everyone who can open the box can view the photos. Select a photo to see it at full size. Owners and admins can upload and delete photos. Select Upload and pick JPEG, PNG, WebP, or GIF files. The dashboard accepts files of up to 10 MB each. Below these three cards are four cards of settings. Only owners and admins can change them.

• SSH Username is the account that Stout uses to connect to the box over SSH. If the organization has a default box username, a cleared field returns the box to that default.
• SSH Key has Sync SSH Key. It authorizes the Stout SSH key on the box again, for example after an SSH authentication error.
• Variables & Secrets holds values for this box that override the values of the organization. See Variables and secrets.
• Stout Daemon has Uninstall Stout. See Uninstall Stout.

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Box groups

A box group collects boxes under one name, for example by product or by bench. A group helps you find boxes. A group does not give anyone access to its boxes. To see the groups, select Box Groups on the Boxes page. The Box Groups page shows a card for each group that you can see. Select a card to see the boxes in that group. Only owners and admins can create, change, and delete groups. To create a group:

1. On the Box Groups page, select New Group.
2. Enter a Name. Stout fills in the Slug from the name.
3. If you want a description, enter it in Description (optional).
4. Select Create.

To add boxes to a group, open the group and select Add Box to Group. You can also select Manage Groups in the menu of a box. To change a group, open the group, and then select … > Manage Group. Select Edit to change the name, the description, or the color. Select Delete to delete the group. Its boxes stay in Stout.

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Box status

The stout container sends a heartbeat to Stout every 30 seconds. If Stout gets no heartbeat for 3 minutes, it marks the box offline. Stout also probes each box that has an IP address once a minute. If a box does not answer the probe, Stout marks it offline at once. On a box that runs Lager 0.50.0 or later, the probe also gets the bench description of the box when the box changed it. See Settings tab.